Survey shows 73% happy with council services

IN the week after the Surrey Advertiser revealed that the county council spent more than £1.5m on publicising its services last year, the authority has announced that 73% of people are happy with the job it is doing.

IN the week after the Surrey Advertiser revealed that the county council spent more than £1.5m on publicising its services last year, the authority has announced that 73% of people are happy with the job it is doing.

Surrey County Council (SCC) has pointed out that the figure from a quarterly period last year is 23% higher than the average level of satisfaction with county councils across the country when they were last compared.

It remains lower, however, than the 77% of people in Surrey who were very or fairly satisfied with how the council ran services in 2005.

The latest figures from the newly launched Joint Neighbourhood Survey also showed only 47% of people thought that SCC gave them value for money, a decrease of 16% on 2005.

The services people are least satisfied with are a lack of places for young people to meet and the standard of road and pavement maintenance, and the council has conceded a need for improvement in some of these key areas.

The wider issues most concerning to people in the county have also been revealed, with speeding motorists and anti-social driving top of the list. Some 48% of respondents were concerned over this, with 45% seeing traffic congestion as a problem.

Third on the list was teenagers hanging around streets, while other issues worrying people include parents not taking responsibility for their children, graffiti and litter, vehicle crime and people not showing respect to others.

The Joint Neighbourhood Survey is carried out quarterly for Surrey Police as well as the county council, replacing the authority’s Community Survey which was published every two years.

Serious crimes, such as the presence of drug dealers and physical attacks, were shown to be of less concern to people than other issues, although some 17% of respondents revealed they were worried about burglary.

With the £1.5m SCC spent on publicising its services in 2007/08 part of a total of almost £2.5m on communications services, 56% of people in the survey say the council keeps them well-informed about services, again a decrease on the 2005 figure.

Almost all respondents (91%) said they were happy with Surrey as a place to live, while the council has said it is encouraged by the figure of 73% who feel that people from different backgrounds get on well together, a marked improvement on the 56% in 2003’s Community Survey.

About 6% of respondents were black or from another minority ethnic group, with 8% more women taking part in the survey than men. Young people, aged between 16 and 24, made up 11% of respondents.

Helyn Clack, the county council’s executive member for safer and stronger communities, said: “To get such positive ratings for the good work we’re doing and for providing value for money is pleasing, especially as it is direct feedback from our residents.

“These results reinforce the fact that many of the services we provide to Surrey’s residents are of a very high quality.”